Definition of Us
by the.goal.is.greatness
Summary: Oneshot/drabble collection. Multiple pairings/genres. Mostly crack and outdated. Repost. / Newest Chapter(s): 1: one-sided Cloud x Renji, 2: Ichigo x Zaraki, 3: one-sided Keigo x Ichigo, 4. Ichigo x Inoue
1. Denial

**Title:** Body of Lies  
**Genre:** Romance / Angst  
**Rating:** M  
**Pairing:** one-sided Cloud x Renji, one-sided Ichigo x Renji  
**Spoilers:** N/A  
**Summary:** And I hate that I'm wearing all these lies…  
**Word Count:** 491  
**Warnings:** Crack paring

**Disclaimer:** _Bleach_ is not mine. Summary is from What I Didn't Say by Saving Jane

**A/N:** This drabble is a repost from my PrettyLittleLiars account.

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Denial (noun): refusal to recognize or acknowledge

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By unspoken agreement, Renji never said any names when they were together like this. And for that, Cloud was eternally grateful. He didn't know what he would do if Renji called out for someone who was not him. No names from Renji's mouth, just a never-ending stream of "I love you"'s that Cloud drank up like a man in a dessert. If Renji ever wondered why Cloud was freer with calling out names he never said anything.

Cloud knew, he knew, that it wasn't his face that Renji saw above him. That the shinigami was clenching his fingers into short, orange hair and gazing adoringly into almond colored eyes. That every single one of Renji's panted breath was from something he was imagining with someone else. Someone he couldn't have. So he came to Cloud.

Stuttering and shy, he came to Cloud. Not knowing how Cloud felt. Not knowing how Cloud watched him, stared at him, babbled incessantly to kill to silence and prevent himself from accidentally shouting something stupid. Not knowing that Cloud was slowly falling in love with everything about Urahara Shoten's freeloader, because Renji was too busy falling in love with someone else to see it.

But he could pretend. That it was _him_ Renji saw when tattooed legs tightened and pulled him closer. That it was _him_ Renji saw when Cloud placed soft, desperate kisses on the sweaty collarbone below him. Each kiss leaving a pleasing mark. See _me._ Want _me_. _Love me_.

"Ugh… I love you… ah! Love you, so much… Please… please…"

He soaked it in, even though they weren't for him. They were for the face he was wearing. "I love you, too…" he panted back in Ichigo's deep timbre instead of his own voice. "_Gods_, I love you so much Renji…"

He just wanted Renji to see him. To see his own two-toned locked fall onto the muscled chest beneath him. To have him stare up into blue eyes and _want_ to see those eyes. He could pretend, that Renji really wanted _him_. Him and not his talent. That Renji knew it was him. And, Cloud supposed, Renji _did_ know it was him, in some roundabout way, that he ignored.

So while Renji panted and moaned and pretended that it was the _real_ Ichigo whispering endearments to him, Cloud was above him, tremors shivering down his spine like Renji's calloused hands, pretending that Renji was looking up at _him_ and pretending that ever single declaration of love that fell from those stubborn lips… was for him…


	2. Bells

**Title:** Consequences of Sounds  
**Genre:** Romance / Humor  
**Rating:** T  
**Pairing:** Ichigo x Zaraki  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Summary:** … or "The Telling of Ichigo's Mood by the Sound of Bells"  
**Word Count:** 727  
**Warnings:** bottom!Zaraki. Also, I'm taking liberties with the bells. I haven't seen Bleach in _years_, but I think not everyone can hear them? Well, forget that.

**Disclaimer:** _Bleach_ is not mine. Consequences of Sounds is a Regina Spektor song.

**A/N:** I don't know why this pairing makes me happy. It's so crack.

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Bells (noun): A hollow metal musical instrument, usually cup-shaped with a flare opening that emits a metallic tone when struck.

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The Eleventh Division learned early on that one could always tell what type of mood Kurosaki Ichigo was in based on the sound of their Captain's bells.

At the beginning of their… relationship, everyone, _everyone_, was skeptical. After all, what kind of relationship was it when one person shouted death threats at the very sight of the other and one person fled at even the smallest glimpse of the one shouting obscenities? It took them a while to recognize their fighting for what it actually was…

Flirting.

And it made sense. No one could imagine Zaraki Kenpachi asking someone out on a date (or being asked out on a date, as the situation called for). Any attempt at imagining such a scene caused violent displays of laughter, usually accompanied by some sort of beverage spraying out of someone's nose. It was almost as hard to conceive as trying to picture _Kurosaki Ichigo_ being in an actual _relationship_. It was… inconceivable. Like trying to think about a working Matsumoto or a laughing Byakuya. It was just… not believable.

So it did make some strange, twisted kind of sense that their flirting was like some violent game of tag. Though, no one was sure how their positions wound up the way they had. And no one really had the guts to ask either one of them the answer.

In the beginning, the Eleventh Division had learned to zone out the sound of bells, since it was something they heard every day, at least the higher ranked officers. It took a while for them to make the connection. That some days, the bells jingled in different patterns. And Ichigo's mood always matched the sound of those bells.

"Sounds like Ichigo's in a bad mood," Ikkaku said, glancing up at the sudden sound of bells and grinning as the sound continued in a choppy, chaotic melody, violent and sporadic.

After more time, Ichigo's more aggressive moods could be more specified. Violent clanging followed by peaceful chiming meant Ichigo had a fight with someone he was friends with. After taking out the brunt of his anger in a more animalistic fashion, he apologized to his… boyfriend?... in a kinder way for taking it out on him. A continuous stream of sharp, angry tings meant he had just come from a Captain's meeting and just could take how pissed off he was at their stupidity. While the same pattern of pissed off chimes, accompanied by some banging and crashing meant he was mad at some opponent, mad at himself for being unable to defeat them.

The Division knew Ichigo was in a good mood, when the chiming was continuous, a gentle ting-ing in a low tone, like a bell rocking on a ship. Rhythmic.

The staccato of bell jingles meant Kurosaki was excited and could keep his giddiness to himself. That he was unable to settle for just one tempo and tried to do everything at once.

And on the days when the Eleventh could feel Ichigo's massive spirit energy and the chiming of bells was notably absent, it meant he was depressed. Every year on the seventeenth of June. The Division always found something to do elsewhere on those days, to give them some time together.

The other squads might think it was odd that their division was so in-tuned to the emotions of someone who, was not only their captain, but _wasn't_ their captain. They wanted to be on Kurosaki's bad side about as much as they wanted to be on Zaraki-taicho's bad side.

Which was why, when the first anniversary of the couple had rolled around, the Eleventh Division took great excitement in getting Kurosaki Ichigo a cool-looking black choker, complete with its own dangling, silver bell.


	3. Homophobia

**Title:** Boys like Girls  
**Genre:** Romance / Angst  
**Rating:** 484  
**Pairing:** one-sided Keigo x Ichigo  
**Spoilers:** N/A  
**Summary:** Homophobia is the worst disease, you can't love who you want in times like these.  
**Word Count:** 484  
**Warnings:** Unclear timeline, since I've only seen _Bleach_ up through the Aizen Arc and that was a literal decade ago.

**Disclaimer:** _Bleach_ is not mine. Summary is a Chumbawumba song lyric, of all things.

**A/N:** Keigo is such a crackhead, but my original goal of a humor drabble was quickly overwrought with angst, so I don't know how well he's portrayed here.

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Homophobia (n): dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people

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It started slow. So slow that if you asked Keigo to look back on his adolescence and pinpoint the moment he _knew_, he would not be able to tell you. There were a lot of things in life that had defining moment like that. Things that just seemed like facts, things that seemed like you had never been told them, had always known them to be true.

Boys like girls.

He knew that. He had always known that. He liked the way Inoue filled out the blouse of her uniform. He liked how long and smooth Tatsuki's legs were. Their hair, their pouting lips and sloe eyes, their tiny waists and flared hips. He loved them.

Other boys liked them, too. They talked about girls in the locker room and on the bus and on their walks home. About who they'd like to see naked and what someone's chapstick would taste like. About who was easy and who was a tease. About how far they'd gone with their girlfriends or their sister's friends. Or who had downloaded the best porn that they could pass around and then talk about some more. It was noticeable how often they talked about girls.

But it was just as noticeable what they didn't talk about.

For all that they were in locker rooms with each other, they never talked about themselves. They never wanted advice on if such and such a girl would find them attractive, or asked to see what the guys thought about their new haircut or if they thought a shirt was flattering on their shoulders. It was as guys bodies were a taboo and off limits subject.

And Keigo… sometimes Keigo thought… no, he _knew_… that he was the only one who thought that way. Because if any of his other friends thought the way he did, how would they ever keep it quiet?

How could they not voice their appreciation of how wide Ichigo's shoulders were? How could they not notice the flat stomach and narrow waist? The long, long legs and the arrogant way he walked and tilted his chin up? How could they not melt over that almost permanent frown melting away into bellyaching laughter in rare moments?

How could they not see how much Keigo was pretending when he spoke about noticing anything else?


	4. Goodbye

**Title:** Died on a Rainy Sunday  
**Genre:** Romance / Angst  
**Rating:** M (language)  
**Pairing:** Ichigo x Inoue  
**Spoilers:** N/A  
**Summary:** I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.  
**Word Count:** 482  
**Warnings:** Takes place during Inoue being an idiot and leaving way back in the beginning of the Arrancar Arc.

**Disclaimer:** _Bleach_ is definitely not mine.

**A/N:** I haven't seen _Bleach_ in a literal decade.

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Goodbye (exclamation): used to express good wishes when parting or at the end of a conversation

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She was gone.

She was _gone_.

She'd just _left_ and… and now what? He was just supposed to let her do that? Is that what she expected? Is that what she really thought about him? That he would just be like, "Well, okay, glad this is over. Inoue's gone, but I've got tons of new friends, so no big deal." What the fuck kind of person did she think he was?

They'd gone through too much together. And he didn't even mean all the crazy shinigami shit. What mattered most to him in his life now was the semblance of normalcy his friends from before that time offered him.

He remembered Inoue crying over the stupidest things, it seemed like everything at the time. The smallest thing could set her off. But now it just seemed funny. She'd cry when she was sad, but she'd cry when she was happy, too. Finding out about Rukia being kidnapped. Finding out they were going to rescue her. She'd cry when she laughed too hard. She really was such a crybaby.

But… but she was bright, too. Full of light and laughter and so much love it seemed to pour out of her. Rukia was a ball of contradicting emotions: a fierce desire to protect wrapped in an angry, violent shell. Tatsuki, too, was all hard edges. Her softness only visible in brief moments. But Inoue… Inoue…

Inoue might cry at everything, but she laughed at everything, too. She laughed at the antics of her friends. She laughed at things on TV or in magazines, small dogs and things in books. Life was a great, big, ball of joy to her and she found something pure and perfect in every day. The sudden thought that he might never see her smile again, that he might soon start to forget what her laugh sounded like… it made him want to cry.

It made him miss her softness.

Inoue was soft all the time. Always with her soft eyes and soft, healer's hands. The soft look in her eyes when she looked at him. The look that meant warmth and home and love. The look that Ichigo ignored for other people. The look that he missed now. More than anything.

And he would do _anything_ to get it back.


End file.
